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Well hello there!

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My name's Elisha and I'm an Engineer.

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I'm here to talk about

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innovation, technology and the environment!

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Way back in 1804, a pioneering engineer from Cornwall

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- Richard Trevithick - designed the first steam-powered locomotive

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just to settle a bet!

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Did you know,

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that in 1847 all railway stations

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across the country adopted Greenwich Mean Time, known as GMT -

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this was before many towns and cities?

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By 1855, about 98% of England and Wales ran on ‘Railway Time’!

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In the 1900s,

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more and more people began living in the outskirts of cities

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and their local electric trains were able to stop

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and start much more easily than steam trains.

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Fast forward to the early 2000’s

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and Transport for London's Oyster card

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became one of the first examples of contactless payment in Europe.

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Now contactless is everywhere!

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And just ten years ago,

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the first battery-powered train

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to run on the railway in over 50 years

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won best "cross industry project"

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at the 2015 Railway Industry Innovation Awards!

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As you can see, innovation and technology

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has changed a lot on the railway over the past two centuries!

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If you'd like to find out more about how we're marking

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200 years of passenger rail travel,

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visit railway200.co.uk